KillerWhalePettingZoo

“The land of opportunity,” “the promised land,” “the land of government subsidized housing.” Actually there’s no more land left in California; some asshole bought it all. You can’t find a job in San Diego to save your life. Several months ago I applied for 10 restaurant jobs and after follow-up calls couldn’t even bus tables. 600 people showed up to one restaurant in Pacific Beach, resumes in hand, trying to be cocktail waitresses, hostesses, etc. The prospects weren’t looking good; at the back of the line I crumpled up my lies and fabrications and threw it in the trash can on the way out. You might say “Oh well, there were a lot of applicants.” But I have a college degree from a highly-competitive university where I was a minority amongst Asian kids who fucked up the curve for me on every exam. That or I didn’t study long enough. Let’s be honest, I missed the first two weeks of every semester because I was traveling to international surfing destinations. I’m just like everyone else looking for a scapegoat. Kind of like the Nazis and randomly blaming the Jews for all their problems. But I’m not like that, I love Jewish girls.

But back to the American Dream…people move to California seeking something; a better job, a beautiful spouse, an ideal life. They appropriate the culture and try to become “more American.” I never realized how badly girls have it. I told this naked Filipino chick to start coloring and she made the girl blonde with blue eyes, as if that’s the stereotypical view we should have of fairies in coloring books. I was pretty shocked with that and all these conclusions started rifling through my head. I felt like she was making a statement, not only about girls, but about how you’re supposed to fit in as a minority. It’s almost as if subconsciously this country is telling you to lose your culture and way of life. If you can’t blend in physically, many will do it by their fashion choices. During WWII, if you lived in Germany you better fucking believe you were wearing a swastika on every single piece of clothing. It’s exactly the same these days, if you show up to the race tracks you better wear the right brand name logos to be accepted into their sub-culture. If not, you’ll become ostracized, or during the Hitler regime, incinerated.

This is a country where you can donate your gently used clothes, or even dirty underwear and entrepreneurs will sell it for pennies on some clothing rack. I once donated a bag of old jeans to The Salvation Army, but the guy running the center was an irresponsible toothless vagabond, so I revoked my bag and headed to Goodwill. They were so happy I came, and they informed me their sales support disabled people obtaining jobs. Well fucking Christ, if I knew that I was providing a salary for the same guy who takes forever to bag my groceries I would’ve just left the bag with the Salvation Army jerk.

“Paper or plastic sir?”

“Does it look like I’m the kind of guy that gives two fucks about that? Just pit it in a goddamn bag!

Any bag! Anything that remotely resembles a bag!”

Actually, I go with plastic 99% of the time, because they are good for lining my trash bin. I only get paper when I need to wrap presents or FedEx some crap I pawned off on EBay.

In other countries, thrift shopping takes on a different meaning. Everything that they can’t sell in the US gets shipped on barges to South America. I was wandering the streets of Chile when I came upon a gigantic flea market. A dump truck pulled up and unloaded a 15ft. mound of clothes; instead of seagulls, vultures circled overhead. A bunch of Chileans were diving into the pile, searching for horses and alligators. When a bystander told me it was the equivalent of 4 items for 25cents, I too became a crazed lunatic in a cotton-flying frenzy. I stayed in the slums for two months, freezing cold showers in Chile weren’t only ironic, and they were also far from romantic. In fact, they were just plain shitty.

But it was ok; I knew I’d be coming back to “the land of opportunity,” a land of overprotection, filled with police cars and real Coca-Cola; the kind of stuff with fructose instead of sugar cane. Nothing ever goes wrong here, nothing if you don’t count when water leaked from the ceiling, the electricity went out for two days, and outside my bedroom window some idiotic landscaper was on his personal weed whacker marathon. This stuff probably doesn’t happen in your town; you might even live overseas and scoff at Americans who live some sort of “dream life.” I kept telling myself that I was just on a string of bad luck; I couldn’t even buy a proper scanner that can distinguish between two frames on a fucking roll of film. That doesn’t happen to normal people who move to “the promised land” though. It’s like a warranty on life, if something bad happens you just move here and all your problems will be solved. I need to erect a new sign in front of the Statue of Liberty, or JFK International Airport (let’s be honest, no idiot in their right mind immigrates by boat anymore). It would read: “Welcome to America. If you don’t own a horse or an alligator, you’re completely fucked.”